


Track One: Friendship, Love and Everything In-between

by Soraya (soraya2004), soraya2004



Series: Crossroads [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst and Humor, First Time, M/M, Nipple Play, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-27
Updated: 2006-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:33:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soraya2004/pseuds/Soraya, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soraya2004/pseuds/soraya2004
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The other times John fell in love were nothing like this</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other times John fell in love were nothing like this.

**Part One**

"The course of true love never did run smooth . . .."  
'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare

\---

John was barely five years old the first time he fell in love.

Her name was Jane. She was a mature six, with porcelain pale skin and long, red hair, which curled in gentle waves about her neck. John thought she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Every day after school, he would watch her skip up the steps to her front door, and every day, before Jane went in, when she turned, smiled and waved at him, John felt like the luckiest boy alive.

Unfortunately, their love affair ended rather badly after Jane fell for a seven year old guy, who had more pocket money, a kung-fu grip GI Joe, and the fastest set of wheels at school. With his heart in pieces, John could only watch as Jane drove off into the sunset in Dan Wolonski's new Batmobile pedal car, her red curls streaming behind her in the wind. And right then he knew he would never meet anyone that amazing again.

***

The next time John fell in love, he was considerably older, wiser and better prepared to handle it. At eighteen, life was full of promise for a young man, who was adventurous enough to meet it head on. And John found his adventure in the shape of Virginia Scott, the thirty-four year old regional head of Mensa's Young, Gifted and Talented programme.

They met over a poker game in Caesar's Palace. He was testing his theory that, by applying stochastic principles to a randomized deck of cards, he could produce a simulative model to predict the most likely outcome of any game. She was in Las Vegas for a hen night.

Virginia found him in a back room systematically cleaning out two showgirls, a stockbroker and a little league coach from Missouri. But the moment she smiled at him, John started on a spectacular losing streak, which ultimately saw him throw all his money away. Later that night, she made it up to him by teaching him several new and decidedly acrobatic ways to apply Stokes's Theorem, and John was an eager student, pounding his way through the most mind-blowing sexual experience he could ever have imagined.

Sex with Virginia was intense. It was wild and passionate and oddly tender at times. In short, it was perfect. So perfect that when John woke up the following morning, sated, sweaty and pleasantly sore, he was ready to spend the rest of his life with her.

In bizarre twist of irony, it turned out that Virginia only ever slept with virgins. Once she'd carved his notch into her bedpost, she lost interest in him. It didn't matter that John pursued the relationship with dogged determination, or that he passed the Mensa test with the highest score in ten years.

"None of that impresses me," she told him as he stood shivering on her doorstep one wet, windy evening.

Still John lingered there, refusing to give up because what they'd shared had been so good, so right, he couldn't believe it was over.

Until Virginia called another person out to join them. "Look, just face the facts, Johnny," she went on in a voice as cold as the rain pelting down his back. "We're through, okay? You just can't give me what Steve here can."

John could only watch as those perfectly manicured nails, which had so fascinated him, now clawed down another boy's chest. He walked away then and he didn't look back. And with tears running down his face, John swore that he would never let anyone use him like that again.

***

The third time he fell in love, John was so disillusioned by past relationships that he didn't even notice he'd given his heart away for the final time. Although the package in which his true love came _was_ partly to blame for the oversight.

Because as jaded as John was, occasionally he _did_ have vague thoughts of getting married, of settling down, maybe having a couple of children. And in those thoughts his ideal partner was petite, usually a redhead, and always just a little older than him, since John had finally accepted that he definitely had a thing for older women. So falling for a tall, sandy-haired man, who was, in fact, several months younger than him, just wasn't on his agenda.

Still, love came to John in the guise of a most unlikely friendship, and fall John did, and hard. So hard that despite the constant bickering, when John wasn't around Dr. Rodney McKay, he felt as if some vital part of himself were missing. With McKay by his side, life was that little bit brighter and clearer. Rodney was the Yin to his Yang; they were the perfect double-act of brains and brawn, wit and charm. Together nothing could stop them!

Then one day their expedition team took a trip through the Stargate to a planet called Proculus. There, John met a woman called Chaya, who turned out to be much, much older than him, and his friendship with Rodney fell apart.

***

After Proculus, John discovered that Rodney could hold onto a grudge with a tenacity he usually reserved for coffee and powerbars.

Now, generally, Rodney could be scathing to anyone about almost anything. It was, John thought, a peculiar part of the Rodney McKay charm. But in the weeks following Proculus, the words Rodney saved for him were especially cutting; and in those weeks, John also discovered that a small, hitherto unacknowledged part of himself had a tendency to fantasize about gags, chains and other potential implements of sexual control.

He didn't connect those fantasies to any latent desire he might have had for Rodney. On the contrary, with Rodney criticizing him on everything from his after-shave to his command decisions, each time somehow managing to bring it all back to his _spectacular lack of judgement_ , all John wanted was for the personal attacks to stop. For things to go back to how they used to be in the days when he and Rodney could banter for hours, trading playful insults without that subtle, hard edge to them.

Then, suddenly, life changed again.

Rodney stopped sniping about the Chaya incident round about the same time he had his own _'never trust an alien priestess'_ mishap. And in the ensuing horror of knowing that the Wraith were on their way to Atlantis, John allowed himself the illusion that at least things between him and Rodney were back to normal. Whenever they went on missions together, the usual banter was back in full force, albeit rather strained due to the bleak outlook for everyone in the city; still, it was there nonetheless. So much so that when John charged off to save Atlantis with a nuclear bomb at his back, his final farewell to Rodney was _all_ banter and no substance.

And even though he noticed that Rodney was a little distant when he came back from his suicide run, he put it down to shock and extreme levels of stress, things they were all feeling right then.

So in the aftermath of the Wraith siege, John went about his days secure in the knowledge that his friendship with McKay was back on track. And if the amount of time he physically spent with Rodney seemed a lot less, he didn't worry too much. After all, repairs were needed all over the city, and there were dozens of new arrivals from Earth, who all needed to acclimatize and integrate with existing teams. In fact, for weeks he barely crossed paths with Rodney unless some hapless marine under his command touched some piece of technology, which Rodney had invariably labelled 'do not touch ever'.

Still John knew that it was only a matter of time before things settled down, as much as they ever did in the Pegasus galaxy. Until then, the banter between him and Rodney was there for him like a constant in a sea of change, and it remained fresh and sharp on those occasions when they were together.

***

Only, one day, for reasons he didn't quite understand, John started counting. Particularly since counting had always been a very bad idea where any of his relationships were concerned. Somehow he always came up short—

      _That's the fourth time you've stood me up, John! Never again!_

      _We've met my friends twice now. When am I going to meet yours?_

      _I can count on one hand the number of times you've showed me you cared!_

—and this time was no different.

Without him noticing, the previously odd, isolated event of _not having every meal with McKay_ had snow-balled into a slew of so many missed meals that one day, John discovered it was getting easier to count the number of hours he'd spent with Rodney rather than the hours they'd spent apart. The thought depressed him in ways, which surprised the hell out of him. Because, yes, Rodney could be annoying sometimes, but it was the good kind of annoying, which reminded him of everything back home that they were fighting to save. More importantly, he'd grown used to having it there. Not to mention that his left ear had pretty much gone to sleep with no one to snipe complaints into it.

Still Rodney was a busy man; they both were, with teams to organize and departments to run. And it occurred to John one evening, as he sat eating dinner alone, that perhaps the higher he went up the chain of command, having less time for personal relationships was something he would have to accept.

***

It wasn't until he caught Rodney with _someone else_ that John suspected Rodney was deliberately shutting him out. Because lately, whenever _he'd_ asked Rodney to hang out with him, in a totally casual way of course, Rodney's verging on polite response was always that he was far too busy to spare the time when he could be, oh, saving the galaxy or something. And really that should have been his first clue because Rodney was seldom _that_ polite and never to _him_.

Still the withdrawal was so subtle that John had barely noticed. After all, Rodney wasn't exactly the poster child for subtlety. But _Teyla_ , God help him, _Teyla_ , who was normally the absolute soul of discretion, just _had_ to point it out in front of everyone.

"Colonel Sheppard," she said one evening as she, Ronon and he sat having dinner in the mess hall. "Is that not Dr. McKay over there?"

And when John looked over his shoulder, he was hit by that sick, stomach lurching sensation he usually only got when he was spinning through multiple-Gs. He could see Rodney at the other end of the room chatting to one of the recent arrivals from the Daedalus. A blond guy with blue eyes. Raymond or Roger Fraser or something like that, John thought desperately, trying to match the guy's face to what he remembered of the crew manifest.

"Did you not say that Dr. McKay would be too busy to eat with us tonight?" Teyla went on, sounding surprised and a little bewildered by Rodney's behaviour.

Feelings which John found remarkably easy to relate to as he watched Rodney and this other guy sitting together, mirroring each other with body language in perfect synchronization. There was a lot of hand waving and finger pointing going on, blatant signs of Rodney having a great time. After that came the peals of full-bellied laughter complete with heads thrown back. And when Fraser leaned into Rodney's personal space, slinging an arm round Rodney's shoulders, John decided he'd seen enough.

"My mistake," he murmured, turning back to Teyla and Ronon. He flashed them one of his easy smiles. "I must have got the days mixed up when I spoke to McKay."

Except he _hadn't_. He knew that much because he'd spoken to Rodney a few hours earlier, and Rodney had told him quite plainly then that he was far too busy to join him for dinner. _Him_ , not the team, just him, since the invitation John had made had been more of the _two buddies hanging out_ variety as opposed to a full team bonding affair.

"Yeah, it's probably just a simple misunderstanding," John went on, smiling through the compassionate looks Teyla kept giving him, still trying to play it cool in front of the new guy. He leant back in his chair, linking both hands behind his head, the very picture of cocky fly-boy cool.

Inside he was seething.

He wasn't sure what bothered him the most: that Teyla had noticed things were a little off between him and Rodney, or that she'd noticed before _he_ had. But now that it was all apparently out in the open, he couldn't help wondering how long this had been going on.

He thought back to all the other times Rodney had blown him off recently, the ' _No, I'm just too busy right nows_ ' and the ' _Some of us have work to dos_ ', while his mind painted vivid pictures of Rodney sneaking off behind his back to be with other people. And every so often, his eyes wandered over to where Rodney was sitting with this Fraser guy. As he watched the two of them together with their easy banter and sharp repartee, a cold, hard feeling settled in his stomach.

Rodney had lied to him. No, John corrected himself viciously, Rodney _was_ lying to him as well as keeping things from him. And the thought of that shook him so badly that he started frowning and drumming his fingers on the table.

He didn't even realize he was doing it until Ronon growled, "You want me to go over there?"

John snapped his attention back to his own dinner companions to find Ronon twirling cutlery in a dangerously suggestive way.

"'Cause it wouldn't take me long," Ronon offered again, looking more and more like he was getting ready to kill something.

As tempting as John found the offer, which in and of itself was mildly disturbing, he heard himself laughing and saying, "Guys, hey, lighten up! Okay, so maybe I'm a little tense from the last trip through the gate. But it's nothing a little downtime with my good buddies here can't cure!"

In the realm of comebacks, it was absolutely lame. The look on Ronon's face told him as much. Even Teyla, who could teach Elizabeth a thing or two about diplomacy, seemed to cringe on his behalf.

"You are certain you are well?" she asked quietly, touching him gently on the arm.

John chose to respond with another one of his easy smiles. "Sure, why wouldn't I be?" he said, throwing in a short burst of laughter to close the deal. He was determined to brazen it out, at least until McKay left before he did. Right then, that mattered more to him than Ronon's frankly disbelieving snort or Teyla's equally pitying expression.

So he sat there, telling himself that he was fine, while Ronon just shook his head at him like he was crazy before turning his attention back to his food. And nearly an hour later, when Rodney and Fraser finally left the mess together, he'd almost managed to convince himself that it didn't bother him at all.

***

Sometimes, John forgot that Rodney could see straight through him. Which was why it took a grand total of fourteen powerbars and two bags of coffee before Rodney would even agree to have lunch with him. And despite having to resort to bribery, John couldn't help feeling relieved that at least some things hadn't changed.

Beyond that, it also felt like a positive step. Lunch was one of the things he and Rodney used to do together regularly before things got all weird. And John couldn't think of a better way to fix whatever the hell the problem was than just hanging out together like guys and not talking about it all.

***

Lunch was a disaster.

Rodney brought his laptop with him. Then he proceeded to read some _incredibly important reports that just couldn't wait_ whilst shovelling his meatloaf down so fast it looked like he was inhaling it.

That left John in the awkward position of trying to maintain a mostly one-sided conversation on his own. Which was just incredibly painful. Especially since he wasn't really that much of a conversationalist to start with. Usually, he relied on Rodney to do most of the talking, while all _*he*_ had to do was "Huh!" and "Ah!" at appropriate intervals. And as he heard himself getting increasingly dorky and desperate as his jokes fell on deaf ears, he started feeling self-conscious in ways he'd never been before around Rodney.

In the end, when Rodney just put him out of his misery by walking out on him mid-sentence, John was actually grateful.

Though that gratitude only lasted till the evening when he caught Rodney eating with Fraser again in the mess, this time with no laptop in sight.

***

After that, Rodney's now undeniable withdrawal _*did*_ bother him in ways he wasn't prepared to analyze, and it left him feeling confused, morose and vaguely rejected. So John wound up taking those negative emotions out on everyone around him. And when people quite sensibly started giving him a wide berth, he found _other_ ways to take it out on them by ordering them to mandatory sparring sessions with Ronon for Ronon to do it for him.

Elizabeth was the first to comment on his behaviour.

After a meeting with the senior staff, she called him into her office, sat him down and placed a hand on his shoulder. "So, John," she said, giving him plenty of time to get comfortable. "How are things?"

"Fine," John replied cautiously. He watched her smile harden at his response, felt her fingers dig just a little. And because he'd learnt early on in his career that the simplest way to avoid uncomfortable personal conversations was to deflect to a more sensational topic, he said, "Look, Elizabeth, if this is about M4X-238, then I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise."

Elizabeth drew her hand back, looking vaguely disappointed in him. "All right, John, we'll do this your way for the time being," she told him, showing him some of the steel, which made her so effective as a negotiator. "But whatever this problem is, fix it! Because I don't want another M4X-238 on my hands. Do you understand me?"

John nodded, since he never _ever_ wanted to end up again in a position where his second in command had to come rescue his ass by trading him for livestock. And Lorne _still_ couldn't quite look at him without laughing his ass off.

Deep down though, John knew Elizabeth was right to be concerned. He was off his game in a match where one stupid mistake could cost them their lives. And the fact that she'd even called this intervention told him he needed to get himself together before something really bad happened under his watch.

***

The mature, sensible thing to do was to talk to Rodney, figure out why Rodney was avoiding him and then find a way to work through their differences, whatever the hell they were.

So John decided to go with Plan B.

In his life, he'd had few close friends. Sure, people always thought he was a great guy to have around at parties and things like that. But in the end those people always seemed to pair off and move on with their lives, and none of them ever really stayed in touch after that. For a while there, though, he'd thought he had a _friends for life_ thing going on with Rodney, with the two of them fighting bad guys all the way out in another galaxy far, far away. Still it was time to face facts. Rodney looked like he was ready to move on now, and if Rodney didn't want to hang around him any more, then perhaps it was time to find a new ' _we're kind of manly best-friends, but we never openly call it that_ '.

He started with Ronon, which made perfect sense. Ronon was officially still _the new guy_ , and as team leader it was his job to make sure the new guy felt like a full-fledged member of the team. So John started spending most of his free time with Ronon. They went on runs together, ate most of their meals together; he sparred with Ronon and he got the shit kicked out of him on a regular basis.

But whilst hanging out with Ronon did wonders for his fitness regime, the real side-effect was that it reminded John of how Rodney just seemed to get him so effortlessly, no explanations necessary. Because Ronon tended to go: "Huh?" whenever he mentioned time-travelling Deloreans. And there were plenty of other cool things he brought up, which made Ronon look at him in a way that obviously meant: _'You people from Earth are fucking crazy!'_

So after a few weeks of that, although John was quite pleased with the way things were going from the whole team-bonding perspective, it became clear to him that in the long-term, the thing with Ronon would never measure up to what he'd had with Rodney.

***

Next, John tried mixing things up a little by hanging out with non-military personnel. He stuck to the softer sciences mostly. Until he realized that Rodney's disdain for their vocation had apparently rubbed off on his speech patterns when Katie Brown angrily accused him one day of belittling her work.

After that, for him it was physicists all the way.

Which, from the scientific point of view, was pretty much what he gelled best with anyway. And on Atlantis there were plenty to choose from. The city was literally crawling with them, all of them busy boosting power levels, running tests and reverse engineering ancient technology. But the really great thing John discovered about physicists was that each one seemed to have some tiny _McKay-ism_ he could tap into whenever he needed a quick fix.

Kavanagh definitely had the attitude and ego to spare, though none of McKay's charm. Instead John went to Miko Kusanagi for that, or just when he wanted someone to politely listen to him gripe about the never-ending pile of reports he had to write. When he needed someone to talk over him non-stop without letting him get a word in edgeways, he went to Bryce or Collins.

The only real snag came with Zelenka, where he'd barely got as far as: "Radek, hey! Do you want to—"

—before Zelenka yelled, "Blbec, ar tebe bláznivý? Because _*I*_ am not!"

And, man, was he seriously off his game if he didn't see _*that*_ one coming!

Still, for a while there, life was okay. Missions ran smoothly, no one got hurt, and John did a pretty bad job convincing himself that, beyond the trips off-world, the staff meetings and those rare occasions when he brushed past Rodney as Rodney was leaving the labs, he really didn't miss having Rodney around at all.

***

The problem, John realized, after yet another vaguely unsatisfying argument with Collins about flux capacitors, was that once you'd had the full Rodney McKay experience, it was difficult to settle for anything less. In a word, Rodney was unique; everyone else was just a watered-down substitute at best. Rodney never had to try to attract people's attention; his presence just demanded it. He was the kind of person, who drew people in, and regardless of whether you loved him or hated him, you never forgot him.

No, the _real_ problem, John realized, as he paced outside the labs trying to bump into Rodney by accident, was that he genuinely found Rodney interesting, and a strange, roiling part of him needed for Rodney to see him the same way.

Initially, he'd put it down to ego. Which he accepted he had as much as the next guy, and for weeks _*his*_ had been a little bruised by the way Rodney had seemed to pick up so easily with Fraser. More so because Rodney's absence had hit him very deeply. Even now, just thinking about it made something in his stomach churn.

But now after months of getting nowhere, John decided to stop questioning the _*why*_ of it. Being around Rodney, it seemed, was vital for his peace of mind. He just hoped that he would soon come up with a better plan to make that happen than loitering outside the labs.

***

Ironically, Rodney took care of that for him by blowing up five sixths of a solar system.

At first, it didn't occur to John that this was a way to bring them closer together. Because for days after Doranda, John was so angry he didn't want to set eyes on Rodney at all. What really disturbed him, though, was the part that _he'd_ played in the whole fiasco. Particularly how he'd let a situation go from bad to worse when his gut had been screaming at him to put a stop to the experiment before everything went to hell.

Had it been anyone but Rodney, John knew he would have pulled the plug in a heartbeat; anyone else, and he would never have let things go that far. So, in the aftermath, he spent a lot of time alone in his quarters thinking about that. About what that meant for him as a leader and as a soldier, and what it also said about his ability to draw a line between personal and professional relationships.

When he got tired of thinking, he started cleaning, first polishing each and every single one of his golf clubs before moving on to his surfboard. He'd just pulled out his side arm to start on that when Rodney showed up uninvited at his door.

"Can I come in?" Rodney asked him, looking very nervous and a lot like someone, who was expecting the answer to be 'no'.

And the frankly relieved expression on Rodney's face when he nodded only made him feel more guilty.

"So I thought I would stop by to see how you were," Rodney went on, shooting for casual but missing by a mile in typical Rodney fashion. "Because, you know, I haven't seen you in a few days."

"Yeah, well, I've been busy," John replied, choosing to go with the casual theme as well. He sat down on his bed and he started cleaning his gun while Rodney paced back and forth, rubbing his hands together in an agitated way. After several minutes of this, John said, "Something on your mind, Rodney?"

"What?" Rodney stopped right in front of him for a moment, seemingly distracted from whatever was bothering him, before his eyes widened and he took a step back, pointing sharply at the gun. "That thing's not loaded, is it?"

"Believe me, Rodney," John said with all the sincerity he could find. "If I wanted to shoot you, I would have done it a long time ago!"

"Oh, ha, ha, very funny!"

"Yeah, I thought so too," John murmured, letting his mouth curl up a little at the corner.

It was the first thing he'd felt like smiling about in days. Though the joke didn't seem to have the same effect on Rodney, who promptly fell back into his old pattern of pacing up and down.

John let him continue for a few more minutes, until he realized there was no end in sight and he was tired of waiting. "Rodney," he growled impatiently, making Rodney stop, sigh and slump his shoulders.

"Okay, so this thing between us," Rodney began, pointing at him then back to himself before waving his hands around. "You know how it has been a little off lately?"

To which John put his own hands up at once in the universal sign of _*hold it right there*_! Because what he'd been expecting was a post-mortem on Doranda not their entire friendship, and he was spectacularly not ready for that kind of conversation right then. But either Rodney didn't see him or he chose to ignore him, and the next thing John noticed was Rodney taking several deep breaths before launching into:

"I mean, you knew that, right? Everyone has been talking about it! Like the fact we're going through a rough patch is big news or something."

Then the pacing started up again faster than ever.

"And yes, yes, I know part of it is my fault too. Because I've been having some _issues_." Rodney sighed heavily, adding little air quotes around the word. "Most of which, by the way, are about you flying off on that nuclear-powered suicide run of yours five months ago," he explained with such a haunted expression that it made something deep inside John want to curl away from it.

Before he could say anything though, Rodney added, "And it's not really important what those issues are," rushing through _*that*_ bit very quickly. Which told him at once that those issues were very, very important, maybe even the big missing piece to the whole puzzle.

But he started flailing a little when Rodney threw in: "Just that they were exponentially affecting my ability to look at you rationally. Not to mention the days where it was hard to even be around you."

And by the time Rodney had moved on to: "Now, of course, I'd been seeing Kate for months already," John was really struggling to keep up. Not that Rodney noticed a thing, deep as he was in the middle of: "So after several intense sessions with her, most of which were about you, I started making real progress. Actually, come to think of it, we do seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about you, all things considered. Well, okay, so we talk about you and me mostly. And—"

"Whoa!" John cut in, waving both hands in the air. "You've been talking to _Katie Brown_ about us?"

"Heightmeyer!"

And John watched Rodney's head tilt to one side as Rodney gawped at him like _he_ was the crazy one.

"Kate Heightmeyer," Rodney continued, narrowing his eyes a little. Then he snapped, "Oh my God, are you even paying attention?"

"Yeah," John answered feebly.

"Good!" Rodney nodded, glaring at him until he put his hands back down. "And don't interrupt me," Rodney ordered him, before he went off again.

This time, John tried even harder to keep up. And for a while he did quite well with that, staying with Rodney on a winding road, which crossed from family to friendship to the pressures of trying to survive in a strange new galaxy. But when Rodney veered into a convoluted spiel about intimacy and emotional distance, John found himself with both hands up again, saying, "Wait a minute!"

"And again with the interrupting!" Rodney complained, folding his arms across his chest.

But John was so shocked and appalled by what he thought he'd just heard that he forged right on. "Did you just say that Heightmeyer _*told*_ you to stop seeing me?"

"What?" Rodney shrieked. "No! Yes! Well, no, no, not exactly!" And for a moment there, Rodney wouldn't look at him at all. Then Rodney let out a huge sigh and his chin went up a little. "Okay, so Kate might have said that I needed to re-evaluate my relationships, and she also might have advised me to take a step back, expand my horizons and look at things objectively."

"Which you took to mean—"

"That we needed to spend some time apart, yes," Rodney filled in impatiently. "Of course, the next step from that was to start seeing other people as well. Which is, uh, why, you know, the _Fraser_ thing," he admitted, very defensive all of a sudden.

"Huh!" John shrugged, putting his hands down again. The scary thing was that it all made perfect sense in a strange Rodney McKay kind of way. The missed meals, the ' _No, I'm too busy right nows_ ', the hanging out with the blond guy . . ..

Yeah, he could definitely see Rodney re-evaluating his relationships and coming out with _*that*_ as a solution.

"Then you started spending all _your_ time with Ronon and Miko and everyone else in my department, I might add," Rodney went on in a more accusing tone now.

And even though the hurt in Rodney's voice made something in him cringe with guilt, John couldn't quite bring himself to confess to all the weird things he'd done during the past few months. He just wasn't comfortable talking about _his feelings_ or _his motivations_ or anything like that. Besides, he honestly didn't have a clue how to explain his own behaviour.

In the end, all he said was: "So we're okay now, right?"

"Yes!" Rodney told him, looking shocked at first, then relieved, followed by absolutely thrilled. "I mean, that's why I'm—if you want—yes, we're okay!"

"Cool," John replied, his voice a little rough. And he had to close his eyes for a second against all the bright, beaming delight on Rodney's face.

Things were a little awkward after that, with neither of them quite sure what to do next, before Rodney pointed at the door. "I should go," he said. "Leave you to finish polishing your—" and when Rodney waved at his gun, John raised an eyebrow at him. "I should go," Rodney repeated himself.

He'd almost made it to the door when John heard himself say, "So, see you at breakfast tomorrow?"

Rodney turned around, frowning. "Well, I heard a rumour that Simpson's planning to make those Athosian waffle-things," he said, making what John assumed were waffle-shapes with his hands. "Which will probably be a hundred times worse than the bagel-things he tried making last month. Of course, we'll probably be scarred for life if we even go near one of those things. But, uh, yes," Rodney said very softly, when he got the message at last. "Yes, I'll be there."

"Okay, then," John told him, trying to hold back the grin he knew was clamouring to get out.

As usual, Rodney had no such reservations. "So, I'll see you tomorrow," he confirmed, practically bouncing on his heels.

And the second Rodney left his room, John gave full rein to a spectacularly goofy smile.

***

End of Part One  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Blbec, ar tebe blzniv?"_ = "Idiot, are you crazy?" - translation taken from the [Online Translation Guide](http://www.translation-guide.com/free_online_translators.php?from=English&to=Czech)  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other times John fell in love were nothing like this

**Part Two**

Despite getting their friendship back on track, John couldn't shake the feeling that something about it was still a little off. Rodney was still spending a lot of time with the blond guy; part of his relationship re-evaluation therapy, he called it. And Rodney still hadn't come completely clean about his reasons for _*that*_ anyway. Which was pretty much what was driving that strange sense of distance he kept getting from Rodney.

He knew it had nothing to do with Chaya; finally, that chapter was behind them; at least, Rodney had assured him it was. Still there were days when they seemed to do nothing but snipe at each other the way they used to right after Proculus, and there were moments when the air between them seemed to crackle with some unresolved tension.

Those, in particular, made him very uneasy. Because something about this new stage in their friendship seemed strangely fragile somehow, and John didn't want to damage it any further by adding mistrust and accusations to the mix. So he decided not to push and he waited as patiently as he could, watching Rodney carefully, trying to give Rodney all the time he needed to come to terms with whatever was bothering him.

***

It took a few months for John to feel like he could relax and really be himself around Rodney again. And although the shade of tension was still there, he'd kind of got used to it after a while. Yet, in all that time, he was never quite sure when he went from finding McKay annoying to kind of liking him a lot to needing him in his life in some visceral way.

He could, however, pinpoint the exact moment he noticed him sexually.

It happened in Rodney's quarters.

He was only there to drop off the DVDs he'd borrowed. And after Rodney waved him in, sticking one arm out from behind his bathroom door, he decided to hang around for a bit because he was feeling nosy and he didn't often get a chance to poke around Rodney's stuff. Then Rodney wandered out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped round his hips. And in that moment, John experienced the dizzying sensation of having half his brain cells melt before leaking out of his ears.

Ten seconds was all the other half needed to decide that Rodney had the prettiest nipples in the Pegasus galaxy.

They were small, pert and perfect. And they were just crying out for attention, broadcasting a signal of: _'Over here, hey look at us, we're right here!'_ on a wavelength, which seemed to be designed specifically for him. He reached out aching to touch them, to taste, ignoring the blurry bird-like shapes flapping furiously in front of his face, and—

" . . . haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

John shook himself out of his daze, ears ringing a little from the shrill sound of Rodney's voice. Somehow, he managed to drag his eyes up, away from Rodney's nipples only to find Rodney waving both hands in front of his face.

"What?" John frowned at him, still trying to blink away the cobwebs.

And Rodney stared right back, looking just as baffled. "Colonel, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he answered slowly. Then he said, "I'm fine," once his brain came back on-line and he'd figured out where he was and what the hell was going on. "Just felt a little tired there for a second," he added, lying through his teeth as he felt a flush start to creep slowly up his throat.

"So it's not . . . ?" Rodney gestured sharply at his forearm before waving at a point between his neck and shoulder.

"No," John howled, instinctively putting a hand there. "And I thought we agreed never to mention that again."

Then he spent a few more minutes deflecting Rodney's questions and Rodney's concerns before he got out of there as fast as he could.

***

That night, John dreamt of a pale, hard chest tipped with a perfect pair of pert, little nipples. He dreamt he was on his back, lapping slowly at them as they hovered over his face. Until he rolled over, taking his dream lover with him, and then there was all the time in the world to lick and nibble and suck those perfect nipples to his heart's content.

In the morning, John woke to find himself face down, biting at his pillow and grinding his hips into his bed.

"Oh, come on, give me a break!" Sitting up, he gave his dick a slap. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he growled at it. "What, life here wasn't interesting enough, so you had to throw me this curve ball?"

His dick didn't bother to dignify that with an answer.

In the shower, John jerked off to fantasy images of big-breasted women, trying to beat some sense into it. He stood there for long, long minutes, head bent under the spray, letting the water pound against his shoulders as his arm worked furiously. And he kept on and on, trying every trick he knew until his arm was aching and the water lukewarm. Still his dick stubbornly refused to come.

In the end, after what seemed like forever, John let himself go there just for a second. One brief moment when his thoughts strayed to Rodney's chest and those small, pert nipples, imagining what it would be like to feel them against his tongue.

The next thing he knew he was on his knees, curled over and gasping while his dick throbbed happily, spurting again and again and again.

***

As far as epiphanies went, finding out that he wasn't a hundred percent straight didn't seem too bad. He'd heard the usual stories of guys, who'd freaked out completely about the whole gay-straight thing; but _him_ , not so much! He was used to rolling with the punches. Plus as a guy, who'd walked through a Stargate and was now living in another galaxy at war with alien vampires, the _not hundred percent straight_ thing didn't seem like such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

The next golf ball he swung at skittered sideways, smashed into the wall before taking an ugly dive off the pier.

"Damn," John whispered, wincing a little.

He went for another one, teed up and lined up his shot. Though not before he'd given himself another pat on the back for how well he was handling this. So he was _'suddenly a bit gay'_! So what? That happened to people all the time.

His next swing missed the ball entirely.

Hurling his club to the ground, John started pacing up and down, trying to clear his head. Because, oh yeah, he was handling this _*really*_ well! And, hey, could the timing have been any worse when things between him and Rodney were already so weird?

He was pretty damn sure that a guy did _*not*_ spend over thirty-five years liking women only to wake up one day _'suddenly a bit gay'_! Okay, so maybe he'd checked out guys a couple of times before. But that had always been strictly for comparison purposes only, and once, just once when he hadn't got laid in over a year.

No, John knew there had to be a rational explanation for why he was reacting this way, and he told himself that he was going to find it, and soon. Before his game got totally destroyed.

***

After asking himself what Rodney would do in this sort of situation, John came up with a plan. And the real irony was that, in a way, he had Rodney to thank for that too, since he got the idea from Rodney's whole 'relationship re-evaluation therapy'.

But rather than avoiding the source of the problem, _*his*_ plan involved spending as much time as he possibly could with it. Because he wasn't prepared to lose his friendship with Rodney over something like this. And, more importantly, if he'd sometimes found Rodney annoying in small doses, then prolonged exposure was bound to snap him right out of whatever it was he was feeling.

Unfortunately, in the middle of one of Rodney's rants, it occurred to him that his problem was far more serious than he'd originally thought. He had no idea what this particular rant was about; he'd walked into the labs to find something had set Rodney off and that Rodney was yelling at two terrified looking members of his team. And like all the other rants he'd witnessed in the past, it was mildly entertaining watching Rodney waving his arms around as floods of sarcasm poured out of his mouth at supersonic speeds. So John decided to take a seat, thinking with a deep sense of relief that, yes, his plan was definitely going to work. Because anyone in their right mind would find _this_ kind of behaviour extremely annoying after a while.

Only, without warning, Rodney turned to one side, pointing furiously at one of the command consoles, and the way the light hit his profile seemed to make his skin glow all of a sudden. When he turned back, the world around him seemed to fade away and all John could see then were Rodney's eyes, sparking bright and clear burning blue, framed by thick, long lashes, which swept up and down, their tips so brilliant white they seemed almost translucent.

 _'God, he's *amazing*!'_ John thought, helpless in the face of it. And the shock came like a blow to the chest, wrenching him out of the daze he'd fallen into.

He staggered out of the labs, heart beating so loudly he couldn't hear anything else. And he knew this was a bad sign; this was a very, very bad sign if Rodney McKay at his most obnoxious was something he suddenly found incredibly attractive.

***

Things only got worse after that.

His new found awareness of Rodney seemed to strike at the oddest moments. Only now there was an added embarrassing element to it where his breath caught and blood rushed south, leaving him hard and aching whenever Rodney did the most innocuous things. Like brushing the corner of his mouth with those thick, long fingers of his. Or lifting both arms to arch the kinks out of his back, making his shirt ride up a little, giving him a glimpse of Rodney's stomach from the navel down.

And, God, that particular stretch of skin did more for him than his entire jerk-off fantasy stable of bikini-clad women.

After weeks of this subtle torture, John felt like his whole body was wired for Rodney. He found himself watching Rodney's hands all the time, helplessly turned on by all the gesturing and the pointing Rodney did to get his messages across. Some days, Rodney only had to walk past, nipples pushing up against his shirt, for him to feel like his skin was on fire and he was seconds away from coming. Had it just been about an all-over-McKay body fetish, John knew he would already have worked out a way to deal with it. But the lust always seemed tangled up somehow with emotions, which made something in his chest feel tight and his heart beat a little faster. And John had no clue how to handle that at all.

Still by far the weirdest McKay kink he'd developed was the one about the ranting.

Truly, Rodney was something to behold when he got worked up like that, mostly because ranting brought out the full package of hot glares, hand gestures and random flashes of skin. So John started trying to say or do at least three annoying things each day to set Rodney off. And he got so used to flying in the face of danger that he started to get reckless about everything else.

***

The minute it happened, John knew he was so busted that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he'd ever be able to talk his way out of this one.

The crazy thing was that he'd known all along that he was pushing his luck standing so close to Rodney, peering over Rodney's shoulder as Rodney worked on his laptop, even following him down when Rodney had to crawl under the lab console to fix some wiring. But, in his defence, he'd only recently added how good Rodney smelled to his list of McKay kinks, so he wasn't thinking as clearly as he could have been under the circumstances. Especially when Rodney's shirt rode up all of a sudden to reveal the pale, smooth skin of his lower back.

So when Rodney said, "Colonel Sheppard, I can't help noticing lately how you've suddenly become extremely tactile," sounding quite testy about that, it occurred to him that _now_ was probably a good time to take his hand off Rodney's ass.

"Uh, yeah," he croaked. "I was just—" John drew away entirely, getting to his feet as Rodney shuffled out from under the console. "You had something on there," he finished lamely.

"Oh, really? I had something on my ass?" Rodney stood up too before turning round to face him, both arms folded across his chest. "Ah, right, of course! They're called trousers, by the way."

John ran a finger along his inside collar, pulling at it, so guilty he didn't know which way to turn. The only worse thing he could imagine right then was someone else being there in the lab to witness this. "Rodney," he began, starting to sweat. "Look, here's the deal—"

"Okay, listen," Rodney cut him off abruptly. "I think I know what's really going on here."

"You do?" John hedged, panicking though a little relieved all at once about not having to explain himself.

"Yes, yes, it's obviously a delayed reaction to that voodoo fruit cocktail drink the Zhell gave us two days ago," Rodney went on, not quite looking him in the eye. "Which, by the way, I distinctly remember telling you _not_ to drink! I mean, God only knows what they put in there. So you should probably get Carson to run a few more tests, because you can never be too careful."

Immediately, John could see the exit Rodney was offering him, and the smart thing would probably have been to take it. Except something about Rodney even trying to do that for him made him melt inside. In fact, just about everything Rodney did lately seemed to have that effect on him. He could only remember feeling this way twice before in his life, both of which had ended in disaster. So the thought of even using that word for how he felt about Rodney was terrifying. But deep down John knew it was the truth.

No sudden life-threatening situation had forced this on him; just days of being with Rodney, working and arguing and living, always side by side. And he didn't want to lie about it any more, either to himself or to Rodney. So he found himself admitting, "No, that's not it at all!"

"What?" Rodney gaped at him.

Heart in his throat, John whispered, "Rodney, I like you."

"Oh."

Ears bright red, he watched Rodney turn away and then start to fiddle with his laptop. "You know, now would be a good time to tell me you feel the same way," he said, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck.

"That's not the point," Rodney sighed, looking at him at last. "It's just, hot sex aside, the two of us being together wouldn't work."

Although John quaked a little hearing what sounded like rejection, he stood his ground, mildly offended that Rodney thought a relationship with him was doomed from the start. "Why not?" he growled.

"Because it wouldn't," Rodney snapped, backing away from him.

It hit John then that this was the big missing part of the puzzle he'd been struggling with. The reason why Rodney had backed away from him in the first place all those months ago, and the reason behind that bizarre relationship re-evaluation therapy of his. "Tell me why it wouldn't work out between us, Rodney," he demanded, taking several steps forward.

"It just wouldn't, okay?" Rodney backed even further away, looking slightly hunted. "Look, I've already given this a lot of thought. So just trust me on this one."

"I do trust you," he replied, watching the words land and do their damage and the way the worried expression on Rodney's face slid up a notch to outright panic.

"This is a bad idea," Rodney insisted, shaking his head.

And John kept closing in on him because he got the whole picture at last.

"I mean, it's not even safe to be _*friends*_ with you with that heroic self-sacrificing complex of yours."

"Rodney," John said very softly, reaching out for him.

"You have no self-preservation instincts, do you know that?" Rodney yelled all of a sudden. "Absolutely none at all! And that's insane because anyone with half a brain has at least enough common sense not to try to get themselves killed every day. And you're nowhere near as stupid as you pretend to be."

" _Rodney_ ," John growled, though he was trying very hard not to laugh now. Because that was possibly the least romantic declaration of love he could ever have imagined, but he was definitely going to take it. Staring down at Rodney's pale, sweating face, he thought about how the ranting and the bickering and the random compliments disguised as insults were going to be his life from now on. And unlike his previous encounters with love, this time he had a feeling his heart would be in safe hands.

"I can't get involved with someone like that," Rodney kept saying, so quiet now John could barely hear him. "If something happened to you—I just can't."

"It's the same for me too, okay," John insisted, catching up with him at last. Gently he cupped one hand over Rodney's nape, drawing him close. "I can't walk away from this, and I don't think you can either," he whispered, laying his cheek against Rodney's. And when Rodney shuddered against him, breathing very hard, John threaded his fingers through Rodney's hair, combing gently through it. "We'll make it work, Rodney," he promised, feeling Rodney's slow nod and the way Rodney's fingers were clutching handfuls of his shirt.

"I must be losing my mind," he heard Rodney groan before Rodney suddenly seemed to relax and lean into him, wrapping both arms around his waist.

After that, John found himself strangely content to just stand there holding Rodney, to take things slow. He'd rushed so many things in his life, he didn't want this first time to become another one of his regrets. Still there was just one point he felt he had to bring up. "So _'hot sex aside'_ , huh?" he teased, barely managing to smother his smile in Rodney's hair.

"Yes, yes, yes," Rodney sighed dramatically.

Though moments later, John felt Rodney huff a little laugh into his shoulder. "What?" he asked quietly.

"Oh, just enjoying a moment of irony, that's all," Rodney told him. "Of course, while my genius makes me extra-ordinarily attractive, I've always wondered what it would be like to meet someone, who just wanted me for my body. Only now I'm wondering how I've managed to end up with a total pervert, who's completely obsessed with my nipples!"

"Hey!" John drew back a little, outraged.

"Oh, please!" Rodney scoffed at him. "Don't try to deny it; you stare at them all the time! And don't think I haven't noticed all those elaborate stunts you pull just so you can accidentally bump into me or brush your hand across my chest, and—"

"Can I?" John whispered, his throat very dry all of a sudden.

"What?" Rodney frowned at him, looking puzzled. But when he swallowed very loudly, biting down on his lower lip, suddenly Rodney seemed to get it. "What, here? *Now*?"

John nodded, hopelessly turned on by the idea and by the high pitch of shock in Rodney's voice, even though he thought it _*was*_ a little perverted and so wrong of him to want to do this here in the lab. But he barely even waited for Rodney to nod before _taking things slowly_ went right out of the window and he was stroking his hands down from Rodney's back, then round and up across Rodney's chest, reaching out toward them.

At the first brush of his thumbs, Rodney shivered under him, nipples tightening up into hard little points, which pushed up against the pads of his thumbs through Rodney's shirt. And his own body reacted at once with pulses of heat spreading slowly down from his stomach between his legs, leaving him hard and aching.

"Jesus," John whispered, shivering a little himself as he watched Rodney arch into his touch. No matter how many times he'd fantasized about touching Rodney this way, he'd never imagined that Rodney would be so responsive. Fascinated, he skimmed over Rodney's nipples again, hearing Rodney's breathing get louder and more ragged all of a sudden, so he looked up to find Rodney staring at him with a frankly stunned expression.

"This okay?" John asked him.

"Yes," Rodney answered very softly before turning his face to one side, breaking eye contact altogether.

"Rodney?" John whispered, a little uncertain, not wanting to stop.

And when Rodney nodded, gasping, "It's okay, I'm just—I _can't_ —" the skin on his neck bright red now, that broke something in him knowing Rodney was so turned on that Rodney could barely look at him any more.

Groaning, he steered Rodney back toward the command console. And after he'd propped Rodney up against it, he cupped one hand gently over Rodney's nape and he whispered, "I need to touch you," moving his other hand to the zip at the front of Rodney's shirt. "Now, Rodney, please," he said very softly, tightening his grip on the zipper, slowly pulling it down. "Please," he said again, even though Rodney was nodding, looking just as desperate as he felt. And they were both panting harshly by the time he slid his hand inside Rodney's shirt.

"Yes, _God_ , anything you want," Rodney moaned, clutching at his shoulders, arching up to meet him.

So he stroked his hand across Rodney's chest, curling his fingers through whorls of soft hair before dragging his thumb over a peaked nipple. Then he stayed there circling slowly over it, watching the flush crawl from Rodney's neck up to his face and the way Rodney kept gasping and shivering violently.

"You make me crazy, do you know that?" John told him, so turned on now he was struggling to stay standing. "Want you so much, for so long," he admitted, pressing his face into Rodney's throat, taking several deep breaths, trying breathe him in. " _God_ , you smell good," he whispered. And moments later, he thought his knees _would_ give out from the sheer pleasure of having Rodney's fingers combing through his hair.

"Come here," Rodney growled at him, angling his head down.

So John turned into it, letting Rodney fit their mouths together, opening at the first press of Rodney's tongue against his lips. Then all he could do was try to hold on as Rodney kissed him like he was staking a claim, sucking gently at first on his lower lip before licking into him slowly, deeply, tasting him and owning him with every wet, slow stroke of their tongues together.

By the time Rodney started grinding up against him, pushing one thigh between his legs, it was so good John didn't think he was going to last much longer. So when it _*did*_ end and so abruptly, with Rodney shoving him away all of a sudden before zipping his shirt back up, tight and impenetrable, John was stunned.

"Rodney?" he gasped, reeling while Rodney babbled something at him in a language his brain was too confused to understand. Then he caught sight of Zelenka standing by the door, which Rodney promptly rushed out of.

John stood there, not sure what to say. Zelenka was staring at him, a little red in the face. Though for entirely different reasons from his, John imagined. He had a horrible feeling that the signs of what he and Rodney had been doing were stamped all over his body.

In the end, Zelenka took pity on him, saying, "Rodney is impatient man, who does not like to be kept waiting," carefully not looking in his direction after that.

For which John was incredibly grateful.

"Possibly you should go after him," Zelenka suggested a few moments later when he still hadn't moved.

John didn't hang around to be told a third time.

***

Racing after Rodney, John finally caught up with him just around the corner from Rodney's quarters. And Rodney wouldn't look at him as they walked the last few feet toward his door. But the moment they got inside, Rodney grabbed him and then shoved him back, pressing him up against the wall.

" _*I*_ make _*you*_ crazy?" Rodney said, shoulders trembling with what looked like suppressed laughter even though John could sense an edge of hysteria to it. "You really have no idea, do you? What you do to me, every day, every time I see you." Rodney sighed against him, touching their foreheads together, and the soft, warm feel of Rodney's breath panting against his lips made him shiver.

All at once, John found himself back in that place where his knees were weak and he was struggling to stay on his feet. "Rodney, please," he begged, needing to taste him again. And he leant forward to catch Rodney's mouth in a quick kiss before he went back in for something deeper and slower, with Rodney's hands cradling the back of his head to guide him into it. He couldn't stop moaning as Rodney licked into his mouth, coaxing him open and heating him up from the inside with each slow stroke until he was sucking desperately on Rodney's tongue, arching his back and rocking hips into Rodney's again and again.

"John," Rodney croaked, breaking off the kiss all of a sudden. "I want to be inside you," he said very quietly. "Please, John!"

And the rough, low sound of Rodney _begging_ like that made John shudder with want. Shutting his eyes, he pressed his face into Rodney's throat, panting, "Rodney—oh, _fuck_ —" because suddenly he was seconds away from losing it.

And Rodney seemed to understand how close he was. "It's okay," Rodney told him, pushing a thigh between his legs. "I've got you, John, it's okay." Then Rodney stroked a hand down his back with a gentleness that broke him.

John ground down, working his hips frantically, Rodney's warm, hard thigh giving him all the friction he needed. And moments later, the pleasure shot through him in sharp, sweet bursts, and he was grunting and shuddering and biting at Rodney's throat as he soaked himself with come.

" _Jesus_ ," Rodney whispered, holding him through it. And Rodney kept holding him up at the end when his body sagged under the weight of all that pleasure, completely exhausted.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, slumped against Rodney's shoulder, panting in his ear. At some point he'd tried to draw back, a little appalled by the way he'd basically humped himself to orgasm on Rodney's leg. But he barely had the strength to move, and right then Rodney's arms were the only things keeping him standing.

"I'm sorry," John mumbled at last. "I don't usually go off like that, I swear." He managed to lift up his head and he opened his eyes to find Rodney staring at him with a stunned, hungry look on his face.

" _Sorry_? John, that was so—" Rodney shook his head, his breathing a little ragged. "You were _incredible_ ," Rodney told him, gently tracing the shape of his mouth with trembling fingers.

Instinctively, John parted his lips to let them inside. And when he started sucking on them, falling into a slow, sliding rhythm that had Rodney writhing up against him, a part of him started to believe that maybe he hadn't ruined the moment after all. Especially given the way Rodney started gasping and fucking his mouth before sliding his fingers out entirely, looking absolutely broken.

"I've got to have you," Rodney said, his voice rasping through the air. And then Rodney was all over him, clawing desperately at his clothes, tugging his shirt up and out of the way, before pushing a hand down inside the back of his trousers. "John, please," Rodney begged him. "Can I?"

"Yeah." John nodded, breath hitching in his throat as one of Rodney's fingers slipped in between his buttocks. He could feel it, still wet with his own saliva, trailing across his opening, rubbing him there very slowly. "Rodney?" he gasped, feeling hot and shivery all of a sudden.

"Like this," Rodney whispered in his ear. "I want you like this—" and Rodney's finger rubbed another slow circle into him, pressing in a little, showing him what Rodney meant.

"Oh, God!" John closed his eyes for a moment. His cock twitched hard, trying to get up all at once. Then he was biting down on Rodney's shoulder, shuddering helplessly, afraid that if he tried to say anything more he would start begging for it. In the end, he _did_ start begging, groaning throatily when Rodney's finger pressed further in because this was so close to everything he'd wanted for so long.

"Rodney, please!" John shivered feeling Rodney brush a quick kiss into the side of his neck. "God, yes, come on," he growled when Rodney eased out of him slowly before turning him round to face the wall. And when Rodney pushed his trousers and his boxers down to his knees, John put both hands out onto the wall, bracing himself.

The touch shocked him at first. Wet and smooth, running all the way down the line between his buttocks, and not at all what he was expecting. So he tried twisting round, glancing over his shoulder, and he found Rodney on his knees behind him, face burning and his eyes even hotter.

"Want to taste you first," Rodney told him breathlessly, stroking a thumb between his cheeks. "Just for a moment, okay?"

He barely had enough time to nod before Rodney's hands were spreading him gently, holding him wide open for Rodney's tongue, and it dragged right over him slowly, licking him there in one long, wet stroke.

" _Jesus_ ," John gasped. " _Fuck_ , that's so good—" he pressed his forehead against the wall, fingers scrabbling on it, struggling somehow to stay standing for another three of those strokes. And he kept moaning all the way through them, feeling the heat blaze through his stomach, his knees finally giving way when he felt Rodney's tongue push inside him.

After that, John just let Rodney take control.

He let Rodney drag him over to the bed and throw him down on it. He lay there panting as Rodney stripped off the rest of their clothes. And, still a little dazed, he let Rodney roll him over onto his stomach before Rodney soon had him on his knees with his face down on a pillow and his ass in the air.

Then John heard himself sobbing desperately as Rodney opened him up again with his tongue, drenching him with pleasure, getting him wet and loose, tasting him slowly. And by the time Rodney had finished with him, he was shaking, sweat pouring off his skin while his cock throbbed and dripped steadily onto Rodney's sheets.

"God, you're amazing like this," Rodney breathed, crawling up alongside him, kissing the skin behind his ear. "So sensitive, so hot." The fingers trailing between his cheeks left him for a moment before coming back slick and pressing into him.

"Rodney, yes," John whispered, lifting his hips, pushing back onto them. "Oh, God, _right there_ ," he sobbed, feeling them sink even deeper, twisting and turning, stroking inside him. And it was so good, so incredibly good he actually _whined_ when Rodney eased them out of him all of a sudden.

"I've got to now," Rodney told him, breath gusting through his hair, making him shiver. "I can't—John, _please_ —" Rodney nudged his legs further apart, kneeling between them. And John found himself arching helplessly into the hands stroking down his sides and over his hips, letting Rodney pull him back as Rodney pressed forward into him.

"Oh, fuck," John gasped, feeling Rodney's teeth clamp down on his shoulder. "You're so—Rodney, _God_ —" he clawed his hands across the bed, fingers twisting in the sheets, fighting through the burn.

"You okay?" Rodney asked him a few moments later, sucking gently now on his shoulder.

But John couldn't speak any more, caught in sudden wave of pleasure so intense it left him shuddering and struggling for air. He turned his face into the pillow, biting down on it. But even that wasn't enough to muffle the broken sound he made as Rodney took him by the waist and drew him up, shifting slowly inside him.

Then Rodney stroked into him hard, right where he needed it, hips snapping against him before sliding back again. And on the next slide in, John was there, coming hard and so suddenly that for a moment he thought he was going to pass out.

He was still shuddering through it, still a little dazed when Rodney curled over him, grunting, "John, fuck, too much—" pushing him down onto the bed, forehead pressing into his nape, hands gripping him by the shoulders.

And the next thing John knew, Rodney was pounding into him deep and hard, and there was nothing he could do but just lie there and take it, with his come streaking all over his chest and neck, all over the bed. God, he could _*taste*_ it on the sheets he crammed into his mouth, biting down on them and trying not to scream, trying to hold on as the pleasure kept rolling through him.

In the end, when Rodney just seemed to fall apart, trembling and groaning and spurting deep inside him, his cock gave one last dry pulse before he _did_ pass out.

***

" _*Jesus*_ ," John said for the third time and counting.

He propped himself up on one elbow so he could stare down at Rodney, who had so spectacularly turned his life upside down. Rodney, who just lay there, looking up at him with an incredibly smug expression. And it almost didn't matter to him that he was feeding Rodney's already monumental ego, or that Rodney was probably going to remind him about this for the rest of their lives in the most insufferable way. He was the kind of guy, who gave credit where credit was due.

So he took a deep breath and he said, "You really weren't joking, were you?"

"I never joke about hot sex," Rodney told him.

"I'll keep that in mind!" John shook his head, still reeling. In all honesty, he felt like he'd just been hit by a tornado or something. Yet he couldn't remember ever being this happy. " _*Jesus*_ ," he said again.

Rodney practically started beaming, smugness rising to dangerous levels.

Right then John didn't really give a damn.

He reached out, laying a hand on Rodney's chest. Then he started stroking across it, enjoying the breathless little sighs Rodney kept making each time his fingers grazed over a nipple. And he might have continued like that for hours, idly playing with Rodney's chest, if Rodney hadn't pushed his hand away all of a sudden, saying, "Okay, that's enough for now!"

"What?" John frowned at him, confused.

"The nipples," Rodney explained. "No more touching!"

"Yeah, right!" John reached for him again, managing to get within millimetres of Rodney's nipples before his hand was brushed aside. "Are you serious?" he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes!" Rodney folded his arms, effectively blocking access. "You're incredibly obsessed with them, do you know that?"

"Since when is _that_ a problem?" John asked him, feeling self-conscious about it now.

"It's not; actually, I like that a lot about you! Okay, well, fine, what I really like, apart from your obsession with touching them, is the way they tend to make you stare and lose your concentration."

John felt his ears go bright red because that was exactly what he'd been doing right before Rodney had cut him off.

"So of course the last thing I want is for you to get used to them; or, worse, for you to get bored," Rodney went on. "Because everyone knows that boredom is the number one killer in any relationship." Gently, Rodney cupped his face in both hands. "And that is not going to happen to us, not unless I can help it," he stated, eyes full of determination. "Which is why, starting right now, I'm putting you on a rationing programme."

John choked out a nervous laugh. "Rodney, come on," he said a little desperately.

"I'm serious," Rodney told him. "Now I was thinking no more than twenty minutes a day at first—"

"Twenty minutes?" John cut in, wondering how the hell he was supposed to survive on that. "That's insane!"

"You're right!" Rodney nodded, clicking his fingers. And with a vague sense of dread, John watched the way Rodney's eyes lit up with the fire of inspiration. "Yes, yes, of course, I should probably make it ten to start with. Then we can review how that's working for you after a few weeks."

John gulped in several deep breaths, quite worried now. "Rodney, listen, I'll never get bored of your nipples, okay?" he promised him. "Really, you don't have to do this," he tried again when it looked like Rodney wasn't buying it.

Then Rodney just waved his hands in that dismissive way he tended to wave them when he felt an argument was over. "Shh, get some rest," Rodney advised him, patting him lightly on the ass. "Trust me, you're going to need it for round two!"

After that, Rodney settled him down on the bed, spooning up behind him, effectively keeping his mouth and hands well away from temptation. And John just closed his eyes, wondering when the hell he'd lost control of his life.

***

Several months later, John accepted, albeit rather grudgingly, that the rationing programme was a success, if the goal behind it was to keep his obsession alive. Still that didn't stop him from searching for new and inventive ways to break Rodney's resolve, or at the very least to gain some control in their relationship.

One day, he got lucky when he accidentally figured out that Rodney had a thing for his hair.

  
The End.  



End file.
